Ethan is one of the founders of Vunani and served until recently as its chief executive officer. He has extensive corporate finance and asset management experience and, prior to establishing Vunani, worked at Standard Chartered Merchant Bank, Southern Asset Managers and Infinity Asset Management.
MSc (Statistics), Executive MBA (Sweden)
Butana established Vunani Limited with Ethan Dube and Mark Anderson and has served in a number of senior executive roles within the group until his appointment as group chief executive officer in 2020. Prior to joining Vunani, he worked at Southern Asset Management and Futuregrowth.
BCom, PG Dip (Accounting), CA(SA)
Tafadzwa qualified as a chartered accountant (SA) in 2009 after completing his training contract with Moore Stephens South Africa. He worked as an audit manager at Rain Chartered Accountants from May 2009 to February 2010, after which he joined Vunani. In 2011, he was promoted to the position of group financial manager and, in December 2016, was appointed as the group’s chief financial officer.
BAcc, CA(SA)
Mark established Vunani Limited together with Ethan and Butana. He initiated a number of early BEE deals soon after the initial BEE legislation was promulgated in South Africa. He later formed a boutique corporate finance company and advised on the formation of African Harvest Limited in 1997. Mark is the CEO of Vunani Capital Partners Proprietary Limited.
BCom (Hons), CTA, CA(SA)
Pride is a qualified chartered accounting who obtained her B.Com Hons (Acc) degree from the University of Johannesburg in 2009. Pride qualified as a chartered accountant in 2013, having completed her articles with KPMG where she audited Financial services companies within the banking division. Pride joined the finance team at Vunani in 2013 as a finance executive responsible for Vunani Capital.
BCom (Hons), CTA, CA(SA)
Lionel served as an executive director of Bidvest Group Limited from October 2003 to November 2012, where he was the commercial director of Bidserv, the group’s services division. He is an entrepreneur with extensive negotiating and investment skills and remains a non-executive director of many of the subsidiaries of the Bidvest Group. He is currently engaged in furthering the prospects of his company, Bassap Ventures Proprietary Limited, and its subsidiaries, where he is the executive director.
BCom, MBA
Nambita is an attorney of the High Court of South Africa and is currently the general manager of legal services for Multichoice South Africa Holdings Proprietary Limited (Multichoice), a leading video entertainment and internet company located in Johannesburg. Prior to joining Multichoice, she held senior management positions at PPC Limited, South African Airways SOC and the Southern Enterprise Development Fund, a venture capital fund with a pan-African focus. Nambita has also practised as a corporate attorney in South Africa and completed executive leadership courses at Harvard Business School (Boston, USA) and Insead (Fontainebleau, France). She was a fellow of the International Women’s Forum in 2013/2014.
BProc LLB, Dip Company Law, Programme in Business Leadership
John is a chartered accountant (SA) and a registered auditor with over 25 years of financial experience. He has held positions as a lecturer in financial accounting at UCT and as the financial director of several manufacturing companies. He is currently an auditor in public practice and serves on the boards and audit committees of two other listed companies.
B Bus Sci (Hons), BCom (Hons) CA(SA)
Gordon was the group Internal audit executive of Imperial Holdings Limited and has been an independent nonexecutive director of Vunani Limited since November 2009. He has also served on a number of other boards, including those of Austro Group Limited and PSV Holdings Limited. During the course of his career, he has served as a partner at KPMG, Sizwe Ntsaluba and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
BCom, BAcc, CA(SA)
Sithembiso has over 15 years of experience in the maritime industry, having worked in many ports in South Africa, Europe and the Far East. In 2000, while working at Smit International BV, he was successful in buying out Pentow Marine during the unbundling of Safmarine Limited, which followed the demutualisation of Old Mutual Limited in 1999. Pentow Marine changed its name to Smit SA and subsequently to Smit Amandla Marine (SAM). In 2005 Sithembiso co-founded Mion Holdings, which now holds investments in several companies, including a substantial interest in SAM. He has been in charge of all the investing and M&A activity at Mion since its inception.
BCom (Maritime Economics)
Between 1987 & 1994 he served as an office-bearer in the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), ultimately becoming the deputy secretary general. He was simultaneously involved in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) from the time of its inception in 1986 and later served as a member of parliament from 1994 to 1997. He was also a founding member & the chairman of the Mineworkers Investment Company (MIC) in 1994. Marcel cofounded Hosken Consolidated Investments Limited (HCI) in 1997 and served as the executive chairman between 1997 & 2014. He has also served on a number of boards in various capacities, including chief executive officer of eTV from 1999 to 2014. He is a director of, amongst others, Tsogo Sun Holdings, Geomer Investments Proprietary Limited, Rex Trueform Clothing Company Limited & African & Overseas Enterprises Limited.
B Arts (Hons)
Xolile began his career as a lecturer in the economics department at the University of Swaziland in 1978 and went on to become the director of the social sciences research unit in 1990. He returned to South Africa in 1994, after which he served on a number of academic boards.
MA (Economics) (Canada), PhD (Economics) (UK),
